Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“Can you tell me exactly what he was doing when you left?”

Nicholas went very white. “He was sitting by the fire. He didn’t look up. He just grunted something, and I went into the library.”

“Did you shut the door?” Alleyn had to repeat this question. Nicholas was staring blankly at him.

“I don’t remember,” he said at last. “I suppose so. Yes, I did. They all began asking me about my brother. Whether he was still livid with Hart, that kind of thing. I sort of tried to shut them up because of Bill hearing us, but I think I’d shut the door. I’m sorry, I’m not sure about that. Is it important?”

“I’d like an exact picture, you know. You are certain, then, that the door was shut?”

“I think so. Yes. I’m pretty sure it was.”

“Do you remember exactly at what moment Mr. Royal left the library?”

“How the devil should I remember?” said Nicholas with a sort of peevish violence. “He can tell you that himself. What is all this?” He stared at Alleyn and then said quickly: “Look here, if you’re thinking Jonathan… I mean it’d be too preposterous. Jonathan! Good God, he’s our greatest friend. God, what are you driving at?”

“Nothing in the world,” said Alleyn gently. “I only want facts. I’m sorry to have to hammer away at details like this.”

“Well, all I can tell you is that at some time during the news bulletin Jonathan went into the hall for a minute or two.”

“The red leather screen in the smoking-room was stretched in front of the door, as it is now?”

“I suppose so.”

“Yes. To get back to the wireless. You tell me that you turned it down after the outburst from Dr. Hart. Did you look closely at it?”

“Why the hell should I look closely at it?” demanded Nicholas, in a fury. “I turned it down. You don’t peer at a wireless when you turn it down.”

“You turned it down ,” Alleyn murmured. “Not off. Down.”

“You’ve grasped it. Down,” said Nicholas, and burst into hysterical laughter. “I turned it down, and five minutes later somebody turned it up, and a little while after that Hart murdered my brother. You’re getting on marvellously, Inspector.”

Alleyn waited for a moment. Nicholas had scrambled out of his chair and had turned away, half weeping, half laughing. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I can’t help it. He’s in there, murdered, and my mother — my mother. I can’t help it.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said Alleyn. “All this insistence on detail must seem unbearably futile, but I promise you it has its purpose. You see, this is unhappily a police matter, a matter, if you can stomach the phrase, of serving justice, and in that cause very many things must be sacrificed, including the nerves of the witnesses.”

“I’m all to pieces,” Nicholas mumbled. “I’m no good. It must be shock or something.” His voice died away in a trail of inaudibilities: “… can’t concentrate… enough to send you mad…” He pulled out his handkerchief and retired to the window, where he blew his nose very violently, caught his breath in a harsh sob, and stared out at the teeming rain, beating his uninjured hand on the sill. Alleyn waited for a little while and presently Nicholas turned and faced him. “All right,” said Nicholas. “Go on.”

“I’ve nearly done. If you would rather, I can wait…”

“No, no. For God’s sake, get it over.”

Alleyn went back to the incidents of the pond and the Buddha and at first learnt nothing new from Nicholas. He had seen Mandrake through the pavilion window and they had waved to each other. He had then turned away and gone on with the dismal business of undressing. He had heard the sound of a splash but had not immediately looked out, thinking that Mandrake might have thrown something into the pond. When he did go out to the rescue he had seen nobody else, but the assailant would have had time to dodge behind the pavilion. He had not noticed any footprints. When Hart came upon the scene, Nicholas had already thrown the serio-comic lift-belt into the pond. As for his escape from the brass Buddha, it had fallen out exactly as Madame Lisse had described it. He had felt the door resist him and then give way suddenly. Almost simultaneously with this, he had started back and immediately afterwards something had fallen on his forearm. “It’s damned sore,” said Nicholas querulously, and didn’t need much persuasion to exhibit his injury, which was sufficiently ugly. Alleyn said it should have a surgical dressing and Nicholas, with considerable emphasis, said he’d see Hart in hell before he let him near it.

“Madame Lisse watched you as you walked down the passage?”

It appeared that he had glanced back and seen her in the doorway. He said that but for this distraction he might have noticed the Buddha, but he didn’t think he would have done so. Alleyn asked him the now familiar questions: Had he gone straight to her room on leaving his own and had they been together the whole time?

“Yes, the whole time,” said Nicholas, and looked extremely uncomfortable. “We were talking. She wanted to see me, to warn me about him. I hope to Heaven you’ll keep her name out of this as much as possible, Alleyn.”

Alleyn blandly disregarded this.

“You heard nothing suspicious? No noise in the passage outside?”

“We did, as a matter of fact. I thought it was somebody at the door. It was a very slight sound. We sort of — sensed it. You don’t want to get a wrong idea, you know,” said Nicholas. “I suppose you’ve heard how he’s made life hideous for her. She told me all about it.” For the first time Alleyn saw a wan shadow of Nicholas’ old effrontery. He stroked the back of his head and there was a hint of complacency in the gesture. “I wasn’t going to be dictated to by the fellow,” he said.

“What did you do?” Alleyn enquired. Nicholas began to stammer again and Alleyn had some little trouble in discovering that he had taken cover behind a screen while the lady looked into the passage.

“So, in point of fact, you were not together the whole time?”

“To all intents and purposes, we were. She was away only for about a minute. Of course what we had heard was Hart going past the door with that blasted image in his hands. I suppose when Elise looked out he was in my room. She’ll tell you it was only for a minute.”

Alleyn did not tell him that in giving her account of their meeting, Madame Lisse had made no mention of this incident.

Before he let Nicholas go, Alleyn asked him, as he had asked Hart, to give a description of the smoking-room. Nicholas appeared to find this request suspicious and distressing and at first made a poor fist of his recital. “ I don’t know what’s in the ghastly place. It’s just an ordinary room. You’ve seen it. Why do you want to ask me for an inventory?” Alleyn persisted, however, and Nicholas gave him a list of objects, rattling it off in a series of jerks: “The wireless. Those filthy knives. There are seven of them and the thing that did it—” he wetted his lips—”hung in the middle. I remember looking at it while we were talking. There were some flowering plants in pots, I think. And there’s a glass-topped case with objets d’art in it. Medals and miniatures and things. And sporting prints and photographs. There’s a glass-fronted cupboard with china and old sporting trophies inside, and a small bookcase with Handley Cross and Stonehenge and those sort of books in it. Leather chairs and an occasional table with cigars and cigarettes. I can’t think of anything else. My God, when I think of that room I see only one thing and I’ll see it to the end of my days!”

“You’ve given me a very useful piece of information,” Alleyn said. “You told me that when you left your brother, the Maori mere was still in its place on the wall.”